You can make money out of the Internet!

Half of B2Cs still alive are profitable

No day would be complete without an Internet survey - and today it's the turn of the e-commerce brigade.

The business to consumer (B2C) sector is not the desperate loser it is made out to be, according to study by US research outfit ActivMedia Research. Around half of these sites are profitable, and what's more, the other half have the ability to scramble out of the red if they set their minds to it, the survey claims.

Regarding business to business (B2B) e-tailers, one in three are profitable, and another third optimistically say they expect to be profitable 'shortly'. The other third don't care about cash because their sites are used for marketing.

Only a quarter of ISPs and online content companies are currently in the black.

The most successful e-commerce outfits are not the famous media-whore dotcoms, according to ActivMedia market research VP Harry Wolhandler. "Online successes are instead found most broadly in the mid-sized business arena where companies with in-place businesses increasingly capitalize on their extended communication capabilities," said Wolhandler.

"As long as high-flying dotcoms are experiencing stratospheric growth, it will strain their ability to succeed. The challenge for them will be to remain standing when online markets mature five or ten years from now." ®